Developing Vocabulary

The human brain is wired for language development, which is a good thing because without language, it would be terribly hard to communicate, to learn, and to communicate learning. Since language impacts reading, writing, speaking, listening and learning in all content areas, it stands to reason that vocabulary development across all content areas would be key. Strong academic vocabulary combined with strong content specific vocabulary allows students to understand what they are reading, be precise when talking or writing, evaluate relevance and credibility when researching, provide and understand specific feedback when critiquing or assisting, and deepens learning. To be effective, vocabulary development strategies need to support multiple encounters with words, provide practice with words in context, and be appropriately matched to the type of words being learned (e.g., key concepts, multi-meaning words, technical vocabulary). Since gaps in vocabulary can reliably predict gaps in performance, all teachers need to take responsibility for supporting students to develop academic and content vocabulary related to what students are expected to learn and do. Note that "assign, define and test" is not an effective method for learning vocabulary.